


Telling the Bees

by sanguinity



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Bees, Gen, Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-26
Updated: 2014-03-26
Packaged: 2018-01-17 03:33:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1372351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanguinity/pseuds/sanguinity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It fell to me to tell the bees, though I had wanted another duty..."</p><p>Sherlock returns from Switzerland, but Watson does not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Telling the Bees

**Author's Note:**

> _Euglossa_ is an absurd choice of genus for Joan's bees, and I have consequently followed language_escapes's nomenclature from [La Chanson des Vieux Amants](http://archiveofourown.org/works/916456): _Apis mellifera watsonia_. 
> 
> The summary quote is from "[Telling the Bees](http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19203)" by Deborah Digges. 
> 
> Much thanks to hophophop for beta.

"Have you told the bees?" Ms. Hudson asks. Her eyes are swollen, her eyeliner thin where she has wiped it away.

Sherlock doesn't ask where she learned the rite. Whittier, probably. For years, she has been digging up ludicrous tidbits of beekeeping lore with which to tease him. It began with the Greeks—Hesiod, Xenophon, Aristotle—but she quickly expanded her net to Columella and the other Romans. The Fourth Georgic with its bees spontaneously generating from the horns of calves entertained her for well over a year. Later, she delighted in the early Christian folklore that honeybees were created from Christ's tears, knowing full well that he would be unable to rise above such anachronism.

And now Whittier. But this time Ms. Hudson asks in quiet earnest.

"She wasn't their beekeeper," Sherlock answers, and immediately regrets it. _Superstitious twaddle,_ he should have said. He is exhausted after the flight from Zurich.

"But she spent so much time with them," Ms. Hudson insists, as Sherlock shakes his head. "She was their namesake, surely she counts for that?"

"Of course Watson _counts_ ," he snaps, before catching himself. He scrubs his palms against his thighs in frustration. He cannot deny how much Watson counted, and certainly not at this late date. Perhaps it would have come differently if he had.

Ms. Hudson sits back and lets the question go, aware that she has stepped wrong. Her fingers work at her handkerchief, and Sherlock understands that she is not asking to be cruel, but because it would be a comfort to her. She has an affection for the bees—for the bees, and for what they have been to both Watson and himself. He digs the heels of his hands into his eyes. There will be a memorial service later, of course, horribly public, with endless commiserations—and that will be its own special hell—but this should be done first.

"I can help, if you like?" she asks with gentle pity. He hates her pity and her gentleness. He craves penance and the cleansing fire of vengeance. But he nods in agreement: it needs to be done, and she needs to witness. Ms. Hudson takes his hand—he cannot bring himself to take it back from her—and she leads him to the roof.

Sherlock is not a good man, and by rights if Watson had ever led him through an apiary, the bees should have roused themselves to warn her against association with him. Unfortunately for them both, Watson had first come to the rooftop at night, when the bees were insensate and unable to phrophesy.

The bees are not insensate now. It is early evening, the workers returning to their hives but not yet settled, and he is unwilling to unsettle them further. "Not until dusk," he asks. Ms. Hudson nods, and sits with him to wait.

It is a mistake to think of honeybees as moral creatures. He could lecture at length on the multiplicity of _mellifera_ matings—17.25 times per queen—the subsequent insufficiency of the haplodiploidy hypothesis, and the ensuing ecological basis of eusociality. (He once did, to Watson's amusement.) Eusocial hymenoptera are simply making the best of a bad job, caught between predators and their own vulnerability. And yet this evening, like Reverend Cotton and the other sermonizing beekeepers of centuries past, Sherlock can only see the goodness and—dare he think it?— _partnership_ within the hive.

The bees work, efficiently communicating the presence of their queen along the vast reaches of the frames. Sherlock aches for Watson, now far beyond his own reach.

When dusk falls, Ms. Hudson pulls four lengths of black crepe from her bag. Of course: she is a traditionalist. White might be more appropriate, but this is already too real for him, and he does not know how these things are done—if they are done at all—with _Apis cerana_. And Watson's bees are descended from _mellifera_ , in any case.

"Would you like me to do it?" Ms. Hudson asks. Sherlock starts, realizing he has hesitated too long. He shakes his head and reaches for the fabric. He will not allow Ms. Hudson to do this; there is already too much to be forgiven for.

He has never lied to the bees. He lied to Angus, and Watson shattered Angus. He lied to Watson, and Watson called him on it, every time. But he has never lied to  _mellifera watsonia_.

He and Watson had agreed on the necessity of this, their only possible response when Moriarty had finally learned to see Watson, to account for them both in her plots. The deception will both protect Watson's life and allow her to move unaccounted for against Moriarty. But the plan that had appeared workable in the distant privacy of Meiringen is grimly real here in New York, and he has had no sign from Watson since they parted at the falls. Sherlock stands with the crepe in his hands, and cannot help but doubt.

But he commands himself, for they have agreed, and now he must lie to their bees.

He knocks three times on the hive wall, and when he speaks, the break in his voice is not dissimulation:

"Your mistress is dead," he tells the bees. "Joan Hui Watson is dead."

**Author's Note:**

> [Full endnotes](http://sanguinarysanguinity.tumblr.com/post/80899614645/endnotes-for-telling-the-bees) (folklore, allusions, species references, and evolutionary biology) are available on tumblr.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Steep Part of the Wind](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1419738) by [hophophop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hophophop/pseuds/hophophop)




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